


into the new (old) world

by savethelastslice



Series: This and That [2]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: 90's Episode, Alternate Universe - 90s, ChenJi's This and That, Fluff and Crack, Gen, Humour, more chenji fluff because they're precious, pseudo-mystery, time travelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-11-26 22:22:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20937698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/savethelastslice/pseuds/savethelastslice
Summary: “Oh wow, a flip phone!” He held it up with the kind of reverential awe one reserved for a test with full marks, or particularly passionate re-enactments of The Lion King. “No way, this is truly, truly an ancient relic.”Or, when Jisung wakes up and finds himself in a strange world, his only hope of getting back to his time is Zhong Chenle, a mysterious physicist at Beijing University.Or so he claims, at least.





	into the new (old) world

**Author's Note:**

> pure fluff and crack, nothing else.

“Case Log 1 - 0 hours after waking. Machine PYY-0304 worked, but it seems calculations were slightly off. Instead of landing on the last Valentine’s Day before the infamous Chocolate Incident effectively halted international observation of the holiday, I have awoken in an unknown place in an unknown time. My sensors don’t seem to work, which leads me to conclude I must have landed at an earlier date, even past the safety margin of temporal reach of the technology…”

Jisung blinked open his eyes, squinting at the white ceiling above him. Was it the noise that had awoken him? He groaned and pushed himself up.

He was on...a bed. An actual soft bed. He couldn’t help but press down on it, watch the springs beneath the mattress push against his palm. Wow.

Jisung turned to look at the source of the incessant muttering. A man sat with his back towards him, orange hair swaying gently as he spoke into something his wrist with rapid intensity.

The movement of the bed when he sat up must have alerted the man of his presence. The stranger whipped his head around with a gasp, eyes wide, then quickly turned back to his wrist. Jisung strained his ears to catch his words.

“I am not alone. The stranger has awoken. I can only hope that he is a friend. Just to be safe, to whoever is still out there, please tell my cats I love them and yes, I was the one who stole the last ramyeon and blamed it on Renjun. Send my love, deliver my justice. End of Case Log 1.”

“E-excuse me?” Jisung called out. Around him, the room - for it seemed to be a bedroom, one bed, one desk, cupboards housing all sorts of the unknown, yet what a strange bedroom it was - had stopped swimming, leaving a dull ache in the back of his mind. “Excuse me, do you know where this place is?”

The stranger turned in his seat to face Jisung. He blinked, face carefully blank. “Do you not know? Isn’t this your time?”

“Huh?” Jisung shook his head. “All I remember was entering the cave and opening the jar, then I blacked out and woke up...here…”

“Okay, okay. Let’s start systematically. What year do you think it is?”

Jisung scrunched up his nose, tilting his head. “What do you mean? Isn’t it 2216? I’m Park Jisung, professor of archeology in Seoul University, I was on an expedition near the North of Busan to uncover some newly discovered relics.”

“Zhong Chenle, fellow at Beijing University. For me, it’s 2216 as well. I was working on a time machine with my team, but I believe something went wrong along the way and I overshot my destination.”

They shook hands. Jisung peeked at the device Chenle had on his wrist. It looked like any old watch to him, but he didn’t comment on it. Perhaps it was a disguise.

“Archeology, huh?”

Jisung nodded. “Specifically the early 2000s. Turn of the century produced some incredible changes.”

“You say you were opening a jar…?”

“Not exactly. It’s square and blue with some glass…” Jisung gesticulated in an attempt to illustrate his point. “Significant photographic evidence shows that it’s endemic to what used to be the United Kingdom, some communication portal-like contraption.”

“Phone box?”

“Yes, that’s it!” Jisung cried out, delighted that Chenle too seemed well-versed in history. “I opened the door and well, yeah. I just. Want to get back home as soon as possible, if I ever can.”

“Me too.” Chenle’s gaze turned sad for a moment, then flickered with newfound determination. “Maybe if there are the right parts I can rebuild the time machine I was tinkering with back in the lab.”

Jisung tilted his head. “Didn’t you say it malfunctioned?”

Chenle shrugged. “It’ll at least get us back to the correct century, if we aren’t already. Best shot we’ve got, but let’s see if we can gather more information and come up with a plan.”

“Two heads are better than one,” Jisung agreed.

“Mm,” Chenle replied, sliding off the bed. He held out a hand to help Jisung up. “And yours looks pretty big,” he said approvingly.

“It is,” Jisung answered proudly. His gaze lingered on the bed, still rumpled from where he had been lying. “I didn’t want to get up. Can you believe they still have soft mattresses like this?” Where he was from, all he could remember was cool carbon fiber bunks. 

“I know right,” Chenle groaned. 

The room, as it turned out, was even stranger than Jisung had first thought.

“Oh wow, a flip phone!” He held it up with the kind of reverential awe one reserved for a test with full marks, or particularly passionate re-enactments of The Lion King. “No way, this is truly, truly an ancient relic.”

“Ay, let me see!” Chenle nudged his way beside Jisung and peered as Jisung fiddled with it for a while before sliding it up. They both gasped in unison as the phone screen lit up. Chenle slammed it shut. “Watch out! If you access the internet from this kind of device you’ll never know what charges you have to pay, then whoever it is will know we were here!”

Jisung nodded mutely in fear. He smacked himself. How could he have been so careless? Around him, the room and all its treasures hummed ominously. 

“You’re right,” Jisung said. “We’re in a completely different world here. The rules we _think_ we know don’t work.”

“Let’s be more careful from now on,” agreed Chenle. “There’s a flip phone beside it, see if it has any clues of the date?”

“Sure, just let me -” Jisung flipped it open. The screen lit up. It seemed to confirm what they had already guessed.

“The 90s,” breathed Chenle. “Age of studded belts and sperm eyebrows. We’d better take stocktake our situation and see what resources we can find.”

\---

“Case Log 2 - Half an hour after waking. Joined forces together with a mysterious archeologist. We are currently scouring the house for means of escape back to our time. Anything and everything can and will be examined. We have determined that we are both trapped within a house, the front door is not responsive to any forms of breaching, though this has to be re-explored if all other options fail. Should this be the case, we might have to make the perilous trip to a human-manned store, which hasn’t been heard of in over a decade. End of Case Log 2.”

Jisung blinked as he picked up a circular device. It was bright and colourful, Japanese words scribbled around. “Oh, I’ve seen this in papers before?”

Chenle pushed up his glasses to take a closer look. “What thing, show me.”

Jisung turned around, pointing helpfully at what he carried. “This! Legend says it contains a chicken or some other kind of animal. You know, I’ve always wanted to see a chicken in real life. You think there’s one in here?”

He passed the device over to Chenle to assess. Cautiously, Chenle jabbed at a button. Then another. The screen remained grey and he frowned. “It doesn’t seem to be working.”

“Maybe it escaped already?”

“Oh, true.” Chenle placed it back reluctantly on the desk. “Maybe it -”

Whatever he was about to say was interrupted by a piercing screech. Chenle jumped approximately a metre into the air and turned to glare at Jisung. “What? What is it? Scared me, what the -”

“I-It’s behind you!”

“What? What’s -” Chenle’s eyes followed Jisung’s line of sight. His brain short circuited and he resumed his glare at the younger. “Jisung...that’s a furby...we still have those around…they’ll never die…”

Jisung seemed to visibly deflate with relief. “Oh...oh yeah. Is it friendly?”

\---

“Case Log 3 - An hour after waking. We have ventured forth from the bedroom we awoke in. We’ve decided to scout the location in a systematic clockwise manner, and have thus entered the room to our immediate left. House seems unoccupied. On this Park Jisung - after the debacle with the Furby, am beginning to have suspicions he’s not a real archeologist - he looks too fascinated with certain objects and next to no idea how they work...”

Chenle heard a curious _oh?_. He paused from where he was recording his case log. Jisung had removed two square like objects from their yellow cover and was observing them under the fluorescent lighting. “Some sort of storage device, you say? The ‘S’ in the USB we use stands for small...could this be a UBB?”

Chenle snorted and choked while disguising it as a cough. “Maybe he got his position out of pure cuteness. Not the most academic merit, but a merit nonetheless. I can only hope it will help us get out of this predicament alive. End of Case Log 3.”

\---

“Case Log 4 - An hour and a half after waking and we move to the final room. Half of it seems to be full of vintage music items. Have half a mind to keep one or two and sell it online when we get back. Some are even autographed. Jisung appears to have lost half his mind over some posters, say they fetch a hefty sum, over 200 thousand won a piece! End of Case Log 4.”

“Chenle, shut up with that already and come look!”

Chenle did. Jisung was pointing excitedly at a poster on the wall. Chenle joined his gaping. “No way. No way that is a genuine poster of the one, the only Lee Taeyong when he first debuted.”

“The one with a handprint in the Hallyu walk of fame? Who broke Korean pop records by leading a group with over 200 members and remembering the names of each and every one? The very same, Chenle, the very same.”

\---

“Case Log 5 - Two hours after waking. To our great delight the kitchen seems well stocked with food. In the event of prolonged trapping we should be able to survive if we ration them out sensibly. Most if not all are unrecognisable. All seem to be high in processed sugar. To be eaten with care. End of Case Log 5.”

As if on cue, Chenle’s stomach growled.

The two both froze and their eyes met. Jisung threw his head back laughing. “Need some ‘rations’?”

Chenle’s ears were red as he punched Jisung’s shoulder. “Yah, as if you’re not hungry. Who knows how long we were there huh?”

“Mm, true.” Jisung eyed the countertop full of goodies dubiously. “Which do you want to eat first?”

“Whichever has the earliest expiry date.”

Jisung blinked. “Oh, that’s quite smart.”

Chenle directed a flat stare at Jisung as he started to root through the pile. “Of course I am, I’m a scientist. You, on the other hand, how did you get to be a professor, huh?”

“I’m...smart in different ways.”

A snort. “One of those who can come up with quantum equations but doesn’t know how to cook an egg, probably.”

Jisung gaped in complete indignance. “Hey! I can cook eggs! Put them in the egg cooker 1001, press a button, and it’s done in three minutes!”

“Maybe when we’re back home we can try it the ancient way. I think I know a colleague with a stove. Priorities, Jisung-ah…remember where we are?” 

“Oh, right. It’s so easy to get lost in all the…” Jisung gestured to the kitchen when something caught his eye. “Hey, there’s an actual calendar here.”

“Of course there is. They don’t have hand implants in this century.” At Jisung’s continued silence Chenle looked up and found him staring blankly at calendar. He reached out a foot to nudge him. “Yah.”

“It’s...February 4th.” Jisung said, disbelief evident in his voice. “Today’s my birthday.”

There was a long pause. Then Chenle burst out laughing. “Yah...how’d you forget your own birthday? Forget the expiry date, choose something you want to eat from here okay? Something tells me we’ll be able to get back home soon, with your brain and mine put together. I’ve been thinking of how to use the devices we’ve been seeing to make the time machine, and it might just be possible.”

A gradual grin spread over Jisung’s face. “You mean it? Let’s start now, then!”

“Five minutes break won’t hurt. Besides, it’s your birthday, as you’ve conveniently forgotten.” Chenle held up a few packets in his hands. “Quick, choose.”

Jisung peered at the selection before grabbing one and opening the packet. “This looks interesting...it looks like tape though, can it really be eaten?”

Chenle squinted at the packet. “Well, there’s the nutrition fact sheet on the side, so…”

Jisung paused, candy in hand. He shoved it to Chenle. “You try first.”

The elder looked like he was about to protest, but he simply shrugged and plucked the candy from Jisung’s hand. Jisung watched closely for the verdict as he took a bite. Chenle nodded, eyebrows shooting up in surprise. “Not bad, actually. Strawberry flavoured.”

Jisung flapped his hands up and down excitedly. “Ooh, my turn.” He took a bite, then made a face. “It’s not something I’d eat again. I’ll stick to my snacks.”

Chenle seemed to realise somethind and squinted suspiciously at Jisung. “You gave it to me just so if one of us died it’d be me, right?”

“Well, I -” He froze. “Wait, what was that?”

Both of them stood absolutely still. It was unmistakable - someone, or something, was at the door. Jisung cursed mentally, they’d taken too much time. The whole place had looked so much like home, they’d allowed themselves to forget where they were.

“Someone’s at the door,” breathed Chenle, stating the obvious. “Quick, back to the room. Back to the room! Grab as much food as you can -”

“Maybe we should pretend to fit in, you think they’d believe we were one of them? They could help us, maybe.”

Chenle made a face as if he’d sucked a lemon as he looked Jisung up and down. “No offense, but absolutely not. Also, we’d be taken as robbers, what makes you think -”

_Click._

“Ahhh faster!”

Too late - the door was thrown open, a blur shot in from the outside and streaked across the room. The sound of something heavy falling to the floor floated to Chenle and Jisung’s ears, and they slowly turned around.

\---

Mark was used to the maknaes staging elaborate plays. This one, however, took the cake. Food and gadgets from Taeil’s precious ‘90s-kids-remember box’ scattered skillfully around the dorm, the counter a mountain of snacks from the retro shop down the road. Chenle was dressed in one of the more futuristic outfits from ‘Superhuman’ - probably nicked it from Mark’s side of the wardrobe when he was gone or something - and Jisung was dressed in his Tinman costume from last Halloween. Both had a strong chrome-aesthetic going on, and both were frozen on the way back to the direction of the bedroom, arms overflowing with assorted packets of candy, a trail of packets leading sadly to the counter.

“Ahem,” Chenle coughed. There was even silver glitter on his cheeks, this boy covered everything. “We can explain.”

“None needed,” Donghyuck breezed by Mark and dumped the groceries on the counter, shoving packets aside and, as Mark cringed, to the floor. “We would’ve let you two have more time playing but Renjun really needed to take a shit.”

“I really needed to take a shit, sorry!” Came a muffled yell from the bathroom.

“I used to play like this with my unnie too,” Jeno chimed in, toeing off his shoes and walking around Mark. “We used to stage the war between Xiangyang and Mongolia.” The other occupants of the room stared blankly as Chenle nodded in understanding. Jeno blinked around. “Have none of you guys heard of Jin Yong?”

“Point is,” Jaemin chirped with a gentle smile and alright, they were all really going to walk around him like that, huh, “we’re glad you guys can find time to just be kids, you know? But someone -” he aimed a glare at the bathroom- “drank too much milk last night…”

“I said sorry!”

Jisung was red down to the roots of his hair. “Where were you all? Chenle said you’d be gone for a while so we thought -”

“It’s your birthday you dumbass, I thought that part where you forgot was scripted!” Chenle cried. “The hyungs went to get something for you.”

“We got Korean beef and stuff for kimchi stew,” Mark said, raising up the two remaining bags from the floor. “Surprise?”

\---

“Case Log 6 - Many hours after waking up. Mission success: keep Jisung distracted until the hyungs returned (‘Yeah!’) but the other mission failed: getting back to 2216 before hyungs returned. It was discovered that Park Jisung was indeed not a professor of archeology (‘Jisung, you were a _what_?’ ‘Yah, but for the TARDIS thing you can really get copyrighted for that.’) but a member of NCT Dream, maknae who just turned a year older, but still dumb as ever (‘Hey!’ ‘I agree.’ ‘Me too.’) Overall we’re all still winners because we all got to eat beef. End of Case Log 6 (‘You should have heard the other case logs, I didn’t know Chenle had such good vocabulary.’ ‘At least he fit his role, what the heck is a UBB?’) I SAID End of Case Log 6. Over and out.” 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! let me know what you think :))


End file.
